ROCHESTER, Minn. – With three weeks until Election Day, we at KIMT are working hard to be your election resource this year — not just for the presidential race, but for state and local races as well.

As part of that commitment, we are bringing you profiles of different local races right up through Election Day 2016.

We begin with the race for Minnesota House District 25B, which is currently held by Kim Norton (DFL), who decided not to run for re-election. On the ballot Nov. 8 will be Duane Sauke (DFL) and Fran Bradley (R).

Bradley served in the legislature from 1995-2006 and says he is answering the call to service once again. One of the issues he says is important to him is health care.

“It really distresses me and I think even now our governor has recognized that, as he says, the Affordable Care Act to be not affordable, so that’s shameful really. We’ve spent multiple billions of dollars, we have a front end system in Minnesota called MNsure — that’s still after almost $400 million of expenditure doesn’t work,” Bradley explains.

Duane Sauke comes from careers in education and real estate. One of the reason he decided to run was because he says Norton asked him to.

“I think there is good reason to seek out people that may not be bound to political processes and may be actually coming from a different point of view and they will, as myself, I won’t be bound to the old fights. You know, the old fights are old fights they’re really not pertinent today,” Sauke says.

Both candidates seem to agree about the importance of both sides of the aisle working together to get things done in St. Paul.

“I served as the chairman of a big committee, a farm kid from southwest Minnesota handling a big committee that spent $8 billion of state money, that’s a big deal,” Bradley adds. “I think every person in the committee would say that if there was anything about Fran Bradley, you could expect honesty and respect — if we have those qualities, we can work together.”

“The issue of how people are getting along, that’s really important and it’s part of what my background would lead me toward is a solutions-oriented process or participation,” Sauke adds. “There are many good ideas — it isn’t like one person, one party, or one group has the right ideas — the best ideas are those that have gone through the deliberative process of how legislature is supposed to be.”